WeWork will open its office spaces to graduate students seeking online degrees
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The co-working company WeWork made headlines in November for announcing its plan to open a private elementary school in New York City designed for “conscious entrepreneurship.” Now, the company has an idea to appeal to a slightly older market: graduate students. According to Bloomberg, WeWork will partner with 2U Inc., an online education provider, to give students seeking an online graduate degree access to any of the co-working offices, with the ability to rent conference rooms for study groups and enjoy the fast WiFi.
Under the agreement, students will be able to study from any of WeWork’s 207 locations. Plus, 2U will offer more than $5 million in scholarships over three years exclusively for WeWork members who apply and are accepted into one of their graduate programs.
“Evolving our technology platform, offering our degree programs and short courses to the WeWork community and providing students in our degree programs global access to WeWork spaces is a win, win, win,” 2U CEO Chip Paucek said in a press release.
WeWork will also license technology used at their Flatiron School software to 2U for $15 million so they can incorporate it into their degree programs. The two companies also plan on building a learning center for 2U staff to host classes, events and lectures at a WeWork space.
As 6sqft previously reported, WeWork unveiled its plan in November for “WeGrow,” a private elementary school, and officially tapped Danish architect Bjarke Ingels‘ firm BIG to design the first WeWork school. And in October of last year, WeWork acquired the 676,000-square-foot Lord & Taylor flagship store on Fifth Avenue for $850 million, which will become the company’s new headquarters.
[Via Bloomberg]
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